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That Time I Helped Save a Baby

After two days on a plane and two days in the car, we finally
made it to the rural village of Bichena, Ethiopia. I had come with a team from
Milkmakers, a brand that is famous for lactation cookies and a hilariously
badass logo. But we weren’t there to swap funny stories about breastfeeding
advocacy and support. We had come together to work with Clinic at a Time, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit that focuses on building and expanding health clinics in
rural Ethiopia. We were invited to observe the state of the current maternal
health suite and be there when they broke ground on the expansion.

I wasn’t sure why an expansion was so exciting to Mulu, founder
of Clinic at a Time, until that first visit to the clinic. We had been there
for less than five minutes when a barefoot woman came staggering into the
courtyard, blood trailing behind her.

“Was this active labor?” I wondered? Oh no, it was
not. Moments later, we were alerted that this woman had given birth back in her
hut, but the placenta was never delivered. Several things had gone wrong, and now this mother’s life was at tremendous risk.

Due to understaffing and lack of resources, the mother-to-be was
not made aware that she could have lived at the clinic during her final month
of pregnancy. The clinic will feed and house the mother and her small children
to make sure they are in close proximity during this critical month of
gestation. This mother was also not aware that an ambulance could have been
called to get her to the clinic quickly. She believed that after the baby was
born, she couldn’t call an ambulance anymore. This really stuck with me: She
didn’t believe her life was important enough for an ambulance after her child
was born.

We discovered the mother had made it to the clinic via wooden bed
(it’s basically a wooden stretcher used to carry the sick and the dead) and a
hailed bajaj (a small three-wheeled vehicle). She could have hemorrhaged in
minutes due to her condition, but the mother managed to make it to the clinic
several HOURS after delivery, although she was profusely bleeding.

I caught this candid shot completely by accident when I was in Bichena, Ethiopia with @milkmakers for an expansion of the maternal health clinic @clinicatatime... The rainy season was in full force last month. These guys were all waiting outside of a restaurant for us, completely unaffected by the showers. They were standing like this candidly and not trying to pose... Someone needs to alert @gapkids that their 2017 campaign models are waiting for them in a rural village in Ethiopia... #ig_kids #kids #ethiopia #africa #photography #travel #wanderlust #fun #clinicatatime #milkmakers #nonprofit

The clinic midwife helped the mother deliver the placenta
successfully, and pitocin was administered to stop the bleeding. I asked about a
blood transfusion, but Mulu told me that even if she had needed one, it wouldn't have been available. There wouldn't have been anything they could do.

I couldn’t stop thinking about all of this region's women who have needlessly
died due to pregnancy complications.

To put this into perspective, the United States has the highest
rate of maternal death in the Western world, with about 18.5 women dying per 100,000
births here. Ethiopia has 353 maternal deaths per 100,000 live
births—a number that includes the much more developed areas of
the country where the regional rate is lower. Rural areas like Bichena can expect to have a number much higher
than the national average.

I joked
that if this baby was a girl, I think our presence here was a sign to breastfeed
her for three years like her brothers.

When the mother was stabilized, we were able to meet and talk to
her. She had delivered at home, as she had with all of her other children. This time, though, the placenta didn’t come out. The women attending her birth
began to panic, and so did her children. In the rush to try to save her
life, she hadn't even found out whether she'd given birth to a boy or a girl. The
chaos of her children and husband screaming, and the village trying to get this
woman to the hospital without an ambulance, was too much chaos to even enjoy the
new life that had she had just brought into the world.

There were signs up all around the clinic stating that
breastfeeding needs to be initiated within the first hour of birth. Both the
mother and her husband were at the clinic, so I asked where the baby was.

The little one was being cared for by the women in her village.

I asked about how she feeds her babies, and she said that the village
has no bottles or formula. It’s breastfeeding or nothing.

I asked if cross-nursing was available to her newborn (this is where a lactating woman will feed a child who is not biologically
or legally hers). She told me that it isn’t practiced in her village and that
you make your own milk. Mothers in her village breastfeed their boys for three
years and their girls for two years, because they don’t want the girls to become
aggressive. She then said that, in the rare cases where women don’t produce enough milk,
the kids are just very small and thin.

I was cringing listening to this, and I started getting very
worried for that baby, since it had been several hours since his or her birth.
Because there had been a miscommunication during her care, our team opted to intervene.
I asked the mother and father if we could go collect the child and bring the
baby back to the clinic so the mother could initiate the first feed.

Unsurprisingly, she said yes and seemed very appreciative. I joked
that if this baby was a girl, I think our presence here was a sign to breastfeed
her for three years like her brothers. The mother giggled in her hospital bed
and we left.

I love this shot I got of a woman at @clinicatatime breastfeeding her toddler. The man looking on at the duo was not the woman's husband, but the husband of her friend who was being treated at the clinic. They rushed the woman to the clinic after her placenta would not deliver at home. The new mother was treated and released just six hours later. However, if these two lovely people pictured didn't get her to the clinic quickly she would have bled to death. This picture was after they learned she was going to be fine. ❤️ big thanks to @milkmakers (those badass lactation cookies) for being the major donors of the expansion of the maternal health suite. You guys rock. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ #Milkmakers #clinicatatime #breastfeeding #extendedbreastfeeding #normalizebreastfeeding #babies #pregnancy #family #motherhood #parenting #bfing #attachmentparenting #ethiopia #travel #wanderlust #nonprofit #charity #maternalhealth #maternity #photography #globalparenting

Soon after this, I walked outside to find the woman who had accompanied the bleeding mother and her husband. She was sitting outside breastfeeding her toddler.
The husband said something to her, and she smiled and grabbed my hand. We jumped
into the car together and drove about 40 minutes out into a more rural area.

We had come to Ethiopia during the rainy season. This day was hot
and muggy, and thunder clouds rumbled over us. Still, it was dry. Our driver
pulled up as far as he could, but the terrain got too rocky, so he stopped
and let us out. I was on my own, following someone who spoke no English (and I
speak a laughably poor amount of Amharic) into a remote village thousands of
miles from home.

I was cringing listening to this, and I started getting very
worried for that baby, since it had been several hours since his or her birth.

I looked around at the intensity of my surroundings. The agricultural
community I was visiting was using farming techniques and tools that have not
changed for thousands of years. The ox and plow I saw working with its
master across the field would be identical to one I would see if I were living
during biblical times.

I had to keep looking down at the path. I stepped carefully over volcanic rock, which, mixed with fresh patches of grass, created a natural,
albeit unsteady, path into the village. The farming tools already blew my
mind, but it was the historic significance of that volcanic-rich soil in this
remote area that really pushed it over the top. It was so clear to me in this
setting as to why life would flourish here. Ethiopia has been called the cradle of civilization, and
some people even think the Garden of Eden was located in Ethiopia (or in the
horn of Africa).

So a place where life started, and has endured for thousands of
years, was a stark contrast to the near-death I had seen from the mother in the
clinic and the reason I was walking this path on that day.

Bichena doesn’t get many Western visitors, so the novelty of my presence was
very apparent. I was suddenly surrounded by every child from the village. They all looked like I imagine kids should look: Safe to play
freely in their village, not wasting water (and also without running water in their
homes), so they were dusty and naturally messy from being outdoors. I noticed
their tattoos and their jewelry, both Christian and Muslim in equal
proportions and everyone living side-by-side in the village.

The woman who had grabbed my hand and led me to the car again grabbed my hand, this time leading me inside a large
hut.

There were no windows but tall ceilings. It was
midday, but extremely dark inside. I heard whispers and, as soon as my eyes
adjusted, I saw about seven women, both Christian and Muslim, standing in the
main room. They didn’t speak English, but I was able to at least ask where the
baby was. They showed me the newborn, lying in the only bed in the house,
under the protection of a mosquito net that had been grandly draped from the top of the
high ceiling to the floor.

I asked the woman standing closest to me if it was a boy or a
girl.

“Mammitu,” she said, a little girl.

At this point the new father was frantically looking for something
in the storage part of the home. I was confused and ready to get this
baby back to her mother, but he insisted. The
storage section of the hut was mostly bulky items used for storing
injera bread or other furniture created from wood and hyde. In the mix of all the
bulk, he pulled out five different pieces of paper—the only paper in the
storage area. He handed me one of the papers as if it were
of utmost importance.

It was a vaccination card, written in English. It
seemed that either the mother or one of their children had, at some point, been
vaccinated for meningitis.

I was thinking about my own loss of these early moments with
my two children, but how happy I was that we were actively trying to make sure
that this mother's experience would be different than mine.

I tried to tell him I didn’t need the card, but it wasn’t any
use, our language barrier was too great for any sort of worthwhile
communication. I looked at it, thanked him in Amharic and bowed my head so
that he would take it back. I sometimes think about that interaction since i’ve
been home. How one vaccine made him feel protected, while only dozens make us
in the West feel that way. (I also realized how inaccessible vaccines are in
this region, and that one was worth so much. How easily we
dismiss the availability of them in our part of the world.)

One of the women wrapped the baby up in cloth, including her
face. They handed me the baby, and I realized that, only a few hours
old, she was the youngest child I had ever held in my entire life. Due to my own
severe health complications during pregnancy, I wasn’t able to hold my
biological son until he was three days old and I was healthy enough to visit
him in the NICU. My oldest son was adopted from Ethiopia at almost
4. But now, amongst strangers in an underdeveloped part of
the world, I had been given the honor of holding this newborn for the ride to
the clinic.

The woman who was initially holding the child sat next to me in
the small SUV, while the father of the baby sat in the back. We don't typically
cover baby’s faces with blankets in the states, so my initial instinct was to
remove the cloth over her. I pulled back the (very breathable) cotton blanket
to reveal the perfection—and the beginning of a personality and identity of
this new life—cradled in my arms. My awe of this tiny human was
quickly squashed when the woman sitting next to me covered the baby’s face back
up. She did it kindly and with a smile. But in this region, they don’t want the
baby exposed to bugs, and they also believe that the baby should be in dark
spaces to mimic the womb. With no seatbelt or carseat within hundreds of miles,
there we were as a group, trying to keep this baby safe in various ways.

As we drove on, the woman must have realized I was emotional
about something. I was thinking about my own loss of these early moments with
my two children, but how happy I was that we were actively trying to make sure
that this mother’s experience would be different than mine. The woman grabbed
my arms to on both sides of where I was cradling the baby, cradling me. We drove the entire way like this. Her maternal
protection over the baby, and then me, is a feeling I will never forget.

We had finally arrived back at the clinic, where the mother was
quickly informed she had a baby girl. The
baby instantly took to the breast, and the mother stated matter-of-factly,
“She’ll be breastfed until she’s 3.”

In that moment, understanding the complexity of patriarchy, the
fragility of life and the delicate nature of cross-cultural interactions, I
was extremely satisfied with the choices our team made that day.